Overwhelmed is a characteristic that both myself and my short-story heroine, Althea, have in common. Writing the ending of the story, trying to find the perfect cliffhanger tend it, was so frustrating. I knew exactly how I wanted the end to play out in my head, with just a dramatic last few words from the main character and an abrupt closing, I could see it, touch it, hear it. But I couldn't put it into words.
It was nearing nighttime on a Sunday, the night before a week of, to put it straight, hell. Multiple tests in every single class, new Oracle assignments, and leaving on Thursday for nationals in debate. It’s not like there was pressure to do well or anything, coming from a school that's placed in the top 5 for the past 2 years. I wanted to bake for my friends' birthdays this week and make cards. I also wanted to do all of the above in a top notch fashion, being the perfectionist that I am.
I had spent the last 3 hours editing the beginning two thousand words of my story, writing a short middle so I would have some space to write a detailed ending without having the story be 13 pages. I was now sitting in at my kitchen table, eating blueberries and staring at the screen trying to have the words come to me. When they didn’t, I would switch to a new song on Spotify, or continue the gchat conversations that I had left with a ‘brb working’ message. There was always going to be something I could do to occupy my time, I thought, until I hit 3am and everyone else but the never-sleeping Bobby S**w had logged off. I thought about reaching that point, and how unbelievable horrible I would feel the next day, while testing the whole week, and when I would be debating in Round 6 fighting for a spot in elimination rounds. It wouldn’t be worth it.
It was time to suck it up and take the final step. I switched the dreaded ‘connect to wifi’ button on my laptop off, watching the yellow light switch to black. It was now just me, my iTunes, and Microsoft Word. I went back into my head, to imagine Kendrick and Althea, the lonely, unable to communicate girl with the friendly, helpful boy; and how I wanted to betray and surprise them. I knew I wanted Althea to become the enemy with a few simple words, but finding just what she would say was agonizing. It would be impossible to find the perfect words, and I ended up having to settle for what I could think of. It was a frustrating experience, not being able to find what I wanted. I wasn’t used to it, I can normally easily articulate my thoughts, but not this time.
It was an act of prioritizing, because I knew that even though what I had written wasn’t what I wanted it was good enough and I had to complete my other lists of tasks. I after writing ‘Can you understand me’, I shut my computer off to bake some delicious sugar cookies. The art of baking, and getting away from the past four hours of my dystopic word, calmed me. After cleaning off the last metal sheet, I went back and began to edit the ending, see how I could make it better. I ended up changing a lot about it, but not those final words. I was content with them, and had grown to like them.
The struggle to write, and to write exactly what you want is a constant battle for me, especially with creative writing. I hope that in the future, I can learn to write freely and maybe let go of the perfect picture in my head because things change. Trying to be perfect only leads to procrastination and writing in very small chunks, which is ineffective and can lead in inconsistencies in the small details. It’d like to be more flexible in the future, because no story is ever concrete, especially if you’re the one making it up. Maybe then I’ll be able to get a sufficient amount of sleep, or bake a cake!
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